Health Witch Hunting?

[Guest guest]

Mel Siff<Mcsiff@a... wrote:

> ***Why is that Australia (and NZ) is devoting so much money and effort to

> finding even the slightest faults with food supplements, a process which the

> authorities seems to be pursuing with even more zeal than is the case with

> pharmacological drugs?.........

>

> Something just seems a bit unfair and hypocritical about the whole business.

> Maybe some of our Aussie pals on this list can fill in information from the

> " horse's mouth " , so to speak.........

>

> While it is essential that the public be protected from the dangers of

> both allopathic and complementary medicine, there is also an element of

> overkill that can affect both types of healing. Are the authorities in

> Australasia and other countries maintaining a fair and equal balance of

> investigation and control that is commensurate with the actual number of

proven > cases of 'herbal' and allopathic disasters? Apparently, the number of

deaths

> or serious side-effects associated with pharmacological agents in the West is

> more than 100 times greater than with 'health' products, so the entire

> situation seems to be somewhat out of balance. Too much posturing and too

>little balance?

>

> How much influence is the power and wealth of the pharmacological industry

exerting in trying to control the major public trend toward using complementary

medicine nowadays?

*** Australia recently saw the introduction of a value-added or goods and

services tax (GST)and among the exemptions (there ought to be no exemptions in

my view) was the area of health...or so I thought. Whilst prescription-only

medicines were unaffected (e.g., ephedrine and AAS which from all accounts are

notoriously difficult to obtain from a doctor - unless you are an elite

athlete!) the price of everything from vitamins to creatine rose by the full

10%. (Though one protein bar actually fell in price, to my disbelief). Vested

interest groups are a loud minority in this country and the pharmaceutical

industry is no exception.

One of my major beefs is that a number of drugs that are available

over-the-counter in the US are 'demonized' in this country by a hungry media who

is fed information by alleged experts. It seems that current affairs programs

in Australia run a story every week concerning some or other health scare based

on misinformation and anecdote. The industry lobbies government about the

dangers of legalising pro-hormones and yet happily supplies literally shiploads

of 'juice' to countries like Mexico (see the link below). Yet whilst all this is

going on, the 'supplement' companies can make all sorts of outrageous claims

concerning their products and the industry " watchdog " fails to even so much as

raise an eyebrow! Claims like " turns fat into muscle " and other such biological

alchemy still pop up from time to time.

(If every supplement that I purchased lived up to the hype of its manufacturers

I would almost certainly weigh 400 pounds at 0.5% bodyfat).

The following article at http://www.theage.com.au/insight/steroids/entry.html

sheds light on Australia's apparent hypocrisy.

" Australia has become a leading supplier to the multi-million-dollar world

steroid black market as a result of lax Federal Government export controls.

This revelation comes despite the government's calls for an international

crackdown on the use and trafficking of steroids, with penalties akin to

narcotics offences.

Official records obtained by Insight show that more than a quarter of

Australian-made steroids are exported to Mexico, the centre of the black-market

trade.

Steroids are certified for export to Mexico by the Federal Government's National

Registration Authority. The certificates guarantee the quality of steroids sent

around the world.

Officials involved in monitoring the industry confirm that the bulk of the more

than 70,000 vials of steroids exported each year go to the illicit trade. They

also say that some steroids marked for export never leave Australia, but are

diverted to the local black market. "

There are numerous other links on this page which are fascinating.

Cheers,

_______________________

Mavromatis

Department of Economics

Monash University

AUSTRALIA

_______________________

" The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the

inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries. "

Winston Churchill.

[Guest guest]

Ron Law, a member of the New Zealand Ministry of Health working group

advising the Director General of Health on mandatory medical error reporting,

seems to be determined to 'nail' the health supplement business in Australasia.

He lectures in management at the Auckland University of Technology and has a

particular interest in evidence based regulation within the healthcare

industry.

His research of to date has revealed that, while there have been approximately

100,000 deaths in Australia and New Zealand over the past decade, there has only

been one contested death due to complementary healthcare products.

He is desperately seeking evidence to support the fact that Australia's

Therapeutic Goods Administration

spends more than 10% of its entire budget regulating an industry with one of

the lowest measurable risk

profiles of all industries. An evidence based risk profile of 1/100,000 seems

inordinately out of proportion to

the 1/10 allocation of resource.

Information derived from this web page:

< http://www.bmj.com/cgi/eletters/321/7270/1170#EL1>

***Why is that Australia (and NZ) is devoting so much money and effort to

finding even the slightest faults with food supplements, a process which the

authorities seems to be pursuing with even more zeal than is the case with

pharmacological drugs?.

Some of us may still remember on other discussion groups how a British fitness

fanatic visited Australia about 2 years ago and was arrested at Customs for

having a private bottle of prohormones which they doggedly refused to accept

that he was not smuggling. The customs autocrats refused to accept evidence

that those prohormones were readily available on the web from Aussie companies

and they insisted on maintaining that this was a criminal case. It cost the

Brit a few thousand pounds in legal fees and fines to stay out of an Aussie

jail, but he now has criminal record and this will affect his ability to conduct

future business in Australia.

Yet, some Aussie athletes admitted publicly to using steroids and other illegal

drugs, yet they still have no criminal records. I was there some years ago when

some top Aussie coaches and athletes went on TV disclosing the names of

others using banned ergogenic drugs, but nobody from all of that group ever

ended up with criminal records.

Something just seems a bit unfair and hypocritical about the whole business.

Maybe some of our Aussie pals on this list can fill in information from the

" horse's mouth " , so to speak. Lest some leap into the fray to state that

this sort of thing happens in other countries, then let me immediately add

that I fully agree. It is just that I felt that we should also comment on

the situation in yet another part of the world without singling any one

nation out as being better or worse. After all, we know in the USA that if

you use marijuana and you don't inhale, even the highest government officials

can get off scot free! A few months ago I provided the titles of books and news

articles on drug scandals involving the entire Olympic movement, Eastern

Germany and in the Olympic Games committees in several countries.(see our

archives)

While it is essential that the public be protected from the dangers of

both allopathic and complementary medicine, there is also an element of overkill

that can affect both types of healing. Are the authorities in Australasia

and other countries maintaining a fair and equal balance of investigation and

control that is commensurate with the actual number of proven cases of

'herbal' and allopathic disasters? Apparently, the number of deaths or

serious side-effects associated with pharmacological agents in the West is

more than 100 times greater than with 'health' products, so the entire

situation seems to be somewhat out of balance. Too much posturing and too

little balance?

How much influence is the power and wealth of the pharmacological industry

exerting in trying to control the major public trend toward using complementary

medicine nowadays?

Dr Mel C Siff

Denver, USA

mcsiff@...